Thursday, 25 January 2007

Mi chiamo Georgios Dachris, and am writing to you because of the inclusionof articles about the Sarakatsani on your weblog. I am a member of theSarakatsani Association of Greece and two more local Sarakatsani Associations inIoannina and Athens.

The thing that drew my attention is that you seem to consider theSarakatsans as Aromanians/vlachs, while in fact they are not. It is a problemthat our associations have to deal daily, and something that I personally can'tunderstand. Every moth there are articles written on the subject, pointing outthe dissimilarities between the two peoples, and in conventions the matter israised again and again. Many Sarakatsans wonder why the subject of the supposedrelation between Aromanians and Sarakatsans comes up again nad again, when somany good scholars (e.g. Carsten Hoeg) have written explicitly on the subject.

We always spoke Greek and don't have any particular customs that connectus to the Vlachs any more than to any other ethnic group in the Balkans. Ofcourse, in Bulgaria we are presented to be Hellenised Thracians and in Turkey,Christianized Turks. If you read the pages that you link to (including theRomanian ones) you will see that they all mention the Sarakatsans as Greek, orat least Greek-speaking. If you check out the Vlach webpage www.farsarotul.org,(the people that we are supposed to be related with), you will see that eventhey themselves dismiss any relationship to the Sarakatsani as mere propagandaor oversimplification. One wonder why I insist so much on this matter.Basically, it think that it is, at least, unscientific. It would be the same ifan American included Sicilians or Apulians in a Piemonte-related article on hiswebpage, because they all speak Italian. At any rate, we have our own customs,our own language and our own history. I can't understand why we can't have ourown identity.

I hope that you'll make the change and refrain to Vlach-related topics only!

24 commenti a “post sui Sarakatsani”

In fact, a recent book published in Romania by Prof. Tanase Bujduveanu (which can be checked in the refferences of the above mentioned wikipedia article)
clearly makes the case for the Vlacho-Romanian origin of the Sarakatsani. Their garb, customs, way of life, folk-lore etc. are utterly different to those of the Greeks and quasi-similar to those of the Vlachs/Romanians.

Postato Monday, 26 March 2007 alle 21:36 da Ugo

In fact, other distinguished anthropoogists such as Irina Nicolau, she herself of Vlach descent opinate in their books that the Sarakatsani, far from being Greek, are in fact recently Hellenized Vlach/Romanians. See:

I know for sure that the distinguished Italian scholar Antonio Baldacci met the Sarakatsani in one of his many expeditions in Epirus and he concluded that they were Latinophone, that is scions of the Roman soldiers who took on pastoral pursuits since late Antiquity early Middl Ages. Maybe we can trace this particular book and point out precisely to Baldacci's lines?

I am reading with interest all this back and forth as to who really the Sarakatsanis are.

Today, science allows us through DNA testing to settle such questions. Is anyone aware of any DNA studies on Sarakatsanis, or on that matter any othe rother groups listed here, and thier genetic relation to Greeks, Romanians, Slavs, Turks or something else?

To respond to all who question this post , you obviously are not of Sarakatsani bloodline as myself and Mr.Dachris. My ancestors migrated from the Pindos Mts. and settled in Eubeoa in the late 1800's near the same spot where Virginia Woolf the famed British writer incorectly identified Wallachian Shepherds encamped beneath the shadow of Mt. Kandili. The people who shepherded those mountain were Sarakatsani and according to gentlemen like Dr.Hammond and his anthropological studies on the peoples of the Balkans the Vlachs and Sarakatsani are genetically different and linguistically as culturally seperate. The traditions, for marriage rites, baptism, and death are unique in Sarakatsani even amongst other Greeks. None the less they themselves speak of the Ancient Greeks as Paleoi or "Old Ones" not as Greeks. They trace their heritage to one of the Helladic Peninsula. Sarakatsani in Turkey and Bulgaria identify themselves as Greeks and as Sarakatsani in Romania the same is true. My great grandfather and grandfather were the last of a tradition of shepherding and the culture is fading into the 21rst century. Why will you at least allow a dissapearing culture go into the darkness of time with some dignity and honor. Those who are desperate , those who lie, those vultures beware for it is not your culture or bloodline that is vanishing. Be careful for as easy as it is to minimalize and alter another man's identity it will be far easier for you to forget and lose your very own. The Sarakatsani culture has Prehistoric roots in the mountains of the Balkan peninsula and their shepherding practices and daily practice echo through the chasm of millenia they are the Pans , Satyrs and Centaurs of legend. They play their pipes, move the river of livestock through valleys and mountain peaks to the warmth of summer pastures chasing the sun and enduring the wind. The memory of their for-fathers told as fireside stories and songs. Their women sing "Mirologi" or Fate songs to their dead husbands sobbing and pulling at their heads as they did in the Ancient Greece. The scratch at their faces and gesture to the ground bemoaning their fate as lonely and without their love. They make a food of wheat for the dead mixed with pomegranate and honey just like Odysseus did when he mixed the same mixture with the blood of a goat so the dead souls could drink in the underworld. The history of the Sarakatsani is interwoven with the evolution of Hellenic culture and it has survived the fall of kingdoms, empires , enduring the horror world war. Hopefully they will continue to survive into the future , into the memory of my progeny. I will remember I will remind them who they are and why they should be proud like golden Eagles on a mountain top crag. With most sincere regards Konstantinos Athanasiou Alexiou "Sarakatsanos"

Postato Sunday, 21 October 2007 alle 06:56 da Konstantine Alexiou

Kali spera sas Kirie Alexiou!

Virginia Woolf describes the village of Achmet Aga (rebaptized more recently after the Asia Minor village from where its prosfyges new inhabitants came as "Prokopi"). I know very well the place been there many times. There aren't really Sarakatsani there now anymore. You have to look for them a bit more north around Agya Ana and Mandoudi (at Kerasia, Achladi, perhaps Mourtia, i.e. places where blonde heads and fairer skin are more common). These were foustanelochoroi contrasting with the "real" Greek villages in their vicinity which were "vrachoroi" (the swarthy Greek villagers were wearing those black Turkish baggy trousers called "vrachoi"). Also a good place to spot Sarakatsani in Euboea is Vlachia and Pyli, but there we have Saracen admixtures at Cape Sarakiniko so it's a bit blurred. I heard with my own ears an old self-declared Sarakatsanos using the word "broasca" for "frog" (in neo-Greek would have been 'batrachos') and "negura" for "fog" (in neo-Greek "michli"). These are all pure Vlach-Romanian words and on my asking him about his knowledge of these unusual words the answer came: 'Oh, these are just words we used as kids, long time ago, no one knows them anymore..Palea Apo Palea and he made a dismissive gesture with his right arm. His name is O Barbas Buzilas and I think he passed away since. So I'm not talking fairy tales, nymphs and Centauri but real words and real people in flesh and blood who used this non-Greek language since their childhood. The Sarakatsani look very different to the other Greeks (who, let's face it, often look more Middle Eastern than European, no offence intended!). No way the Sarakatsani are Greek. As Antonio Baldacci put it, they are Italiote, of Latin origin.

Postato Tuesday, 30 October 2007 alle 20:32 da Ugo

To all who read this post, I am of Sarakatsani bloodline and I none of my ancestors were Latin speakers, they spoke an archaic form of Greek , those who speak Romanian or Aromanian or Latin with Slavic and Turkic borrowings are the Vlachs and Koutsovlachs etc. Perhaps this common mistake of batching all shepherd clans and cultures together as the same is a sign of your Sociological and Anthropological. My ancestors settled in Mandoudi over a 130 years ago. The local inhabitants of Greece and there is no offense taken if they seem Middle Eastern are a mix of thousands of years. The Greeks as a nation do not define themselves by bloodlines as do other cultures obsessed with racial purity. Greeks and Greece has survived through an idea , a culture , a language , a cuisine and a music that is distinct and ancient. The Hellenic culture has had culture admixtures and mixtures since the dawn of its inception. From Minoan and Pelasgians to Mycenaeans and Phoenicians , Egyptians and Medes to Ethiopians and Assyrians. The later Greeks "Hellenistic or Alexandrian" made an effort to unite cultures throughout Alexander's far reaching empire they also made speaches by "Isocrates" about Greekness as a state of mind and not just a bloodline. In Byzantine Era Greece 330 A.D -1453 A.D the culture encompassed Armenians, Syrians, Russians, Slavs, Bulgarians,Arabs, Seljuk Turks, Jews , Albanians, Ethiopians,Egyptians, Vikings etc ,etc. and accepted these culures into the Orthodox Byzantine Religion and culture. All these admixtures still prevalent and present to a small percent in modern Greek DNA. Most Modern Greeks have a physical Mediterranean look about them dark hair curly hair , dark eyes is the stereotype. But like in most nationalities or cultures that is not the norm or the general truth with greeks, their are Alpine types in and Danaric , even Middle Easter or Armenoid types but general the predominant features in Greeks are are genetically evident in DNA studies carried out recently in which the results show a homogenous culture with variants included. see http://dienekes.blogspot.com/ Modern Greeks are richer for this both genetically and culturally. As for Sarakatsans being fairer, I myself have some reddish blonde hair that I inherited from my papou (Greek for grandfather) notice I did not call him my tata (vlach for Grandfather) like my cousin whose mother and family are from Lamia (vlachs) family still speaks vlach or a form of latin. There is factual evidence done by scientist doing field work , (living with the tribes ) since the turn of the century. They describe in detail the similarities and differences between Vlachs and Sarakatsani and the reason why they are distinct. Read (Nicholas J. Hammond, Migrations and Invasions in Greece and Adjacent Areas) 1976 , check out link http://www.aee.gr/english/5sarakatsani/sarakatsani.html . The facts about the Sarakatsanoi are well known as far north as Bulagaria where the inhabitants have lived for generations in Bulgaria speak the language and live amongst the general populace but still call themselves Sarakatsans and Greeks , a small percent still speak Greek at home and greater numbers have recently enrolled their children into Greek speaking schools in order to hold on to their heritage. see archive link here http://www.pizzocaro.com/story/preview.php?img=8&sid=62

Postato Sunday, 8 March 2009 alle 22:45 da Konstantinos Alexiou

As for the comment about finding old Sarakatsans speaking in "latin" words for frogs and fog. In the villages of Pyli , Mandoudi where I spent most of my youth in I came across stories of little vlach kids screamin "Tata to pipin ta " and the grandfathers responding "To'xo ston pato ston trova, ti nuxta sto konak" which was a cultural anecdote told to express not only the differences between us and them. Us (Sarakatsani) and them meaning (Vlachs). That anecdote was half archaic greek half Latin , words like Trova, Konak and Pipin, Tata, are all latin words ,some used in both shepherd cultures of the Vlach and Sarakatsans others only in Vlach. Linguists and Anthropologists will explain in great detail how both Tribes , both shepherding tribes using the same valleys to pasture have traded and respected each other but none ever until only in recent history mixed. The endogomy of the tribes and their rules of marriage and traditions have distinct differences and variations. Their are Vlachs in our village of Mandoudi names like "Mourtopalas" and " Vlachos" are common and they are known by the fact that their grandmothers still speak Vlach (Aromanian) they are allowed to marry their first cousins and they make traditional foods they only share amongst themselves. I have family second cousins who after the second world war married into Vlach families and were themselves from Sarakatsani stock. Their traditions vary very little because now in the 21century these Vlachs and these Sarakatsans, the Arvanite down the road and the Yifto (Gypsie) are all Greeks. Is that not really what disturbs all of you. It frustrates all those opposed to the Greek legacy that despite vast cultural differences and vast historical chasms that this harsh , stubborn and indomitable spirit of Greece influences , inspires and willingly captivates all who fall under its spell. In regards to the Sarakatsani issue, I am first a human being then a citizen of the World and lastly a Greek (Sarakatsan) which is in fact one and the same. Sarakatsans travelled the valleys and mountains of the Balkans long before the "Greek speaking tribes" entered the peninsula 2000 B.C.E , they moved cattle and sheep to pasture long before the 1rst Cetury A.D ,Romans and Romanized any Dacians . They certainly existed long before the Slavs, Tartars, Bulgars, Avars , Turks & Albanians ever stepped foot in the balkans. So please no more fiction bring some real historical information to back up your theories , because for now they only seem like misguided politically motivated lies.

Postato Sunday, 8 March 2009 alle 23:32 da Konstantinos Alexiou

Show me one Vlach, lest one Romanian that has Italiote (whatever that means) features. The italians are themselves culturally diverse with a history of Keltic,German and Gothic invasions in the north, and genuine Latin tribes in central Italy (Rome ,Capua, etc) the rest from Calabria all the way down to Sicily has had , incursions and admixtures from North Africans, Arabs, Phoenicians, and of course Greeks. So what are you at all talking about. The Vlachs are about as Italian culturally and genetically as the Bulgarians are Turkish. Vlachs themselves are not Romanians and although they may speak a Latin based dialect so the Portuguese . I suppose you will say that Portugal is Italiote as well. I doubt it , and the reason I scoff is because Portugal is to far away from the Balkans to make a viable enough politically motivated non sequitur (Pardon the Latin wit) .

Postato Sunday, 8 March 2009 alle 23:49 da Konstantinos Alexiou

I believe Konstantine Alexiou is excessively pro-greek in his points of view. May be he belongs to the greek establisment that has promoted and supports "grecification" of all the minorities inside Greece. The same forced grecification that has caused riots in the last months in Athens and Greece! Indeed studies like that of Tanase Bujduveanu and Baldacci
clearly make the case for the Vlacho-Romanian origin of the Sarakatsani. Their garb, customs, way of life, folklore, etc. are utterly different to those of the Greeks and quasi-similar to those of the Vlachs/Romanians. John

Postato Monday, 9 March 2009 alle 23:38 da John

You believe that I represent pro greek point of view, you believe that I belong to the Greek establishment the support "Hellenization" (Grecification is not a word) . You believe that Greeks support Hellenization on minorities in Greece. You believe a whole lot of things since they are all untruths (lies), for me. You make absolute assumptions and nothing is more dangerous than one who assumes and is an absolutist. There are no absolutes (only mine...) and your agenda of finding some cultural homeland for a ethnic group that in the 21century is ridiculous. I live in New York, I was born in Houston Texas, U.S.A, and I have cultural roots to the Americas as well as to the valley where the Kyreus river rolls and has rolled for millennia. I represent myself and my grandfather's culture. I have read about your Barbas Buzilas before on your website and its attempt to make negative remarks about a civilization that sheltered and fed your so called culture for generations. There is a distinction that Sarakatsani make in Mantoudi (Kerinthos) Euboea and it was made between you xinoyalathes and us the Sarakatsani. There are many minorities in Greece now, some from Pakistan, the Sudan, Russian etc. Are the cultural Greeks supposed to worry about random remarks from Aromanian Vlachs about their culture fading? If it was Hellenized then your culture failed to sustain itself and was swallowed by the Hellenic culture that either enriched it or erased it. So many Greeks in Bulgaria , Romania, Russia ( of the Black Sea) speak not just a Greek Dialect but an Ancient Greek one. How many tiny towns in southern Italy have survived thousands of years of cultural assimilation from the Romans to the Catholic Churc and yet to this day there are self determined Greek speak families? How many Cretan families were Islamized and culturally ripped from Greece / Crete and moved to Syria and Egypt by the Turkish governors found there way back to Crete? The culture survives because it has the tools in which to sustain itself and it does so on the truth of its own need to survive. Not on lies and delusions. Greece was and will always be, and not for critics like those posting on this site about some unfounded nonsense like Mr. Baldacci wrote. Read books and lend your minds to the truth of people connected to the Sarakatsan like myself. The Sarakatsans are older than the Greek language and adopted somewhere along the long river of time. That makes them original inhabitants genetically of the Hellespont and the Greek land. They adopted like the Thracians and the Pelasgians, Minoans etc the language of a tribal warlike culture that invaded at the dawn of the bronze age and it has remained a cultural mosaic that continues to this day.... and will never be extinguished. As you can see, we are the one and only blessed with the truth about the Sarakatsani.

Postato Tuesday, 31 August 2010 alle 03:21 da konstantine alexiou

I want to repeat that I believe Konstantine Alexiou is excessively pro-greek in his points of view. Indeed studies like that of Tanase Bujduveanu and Baldacci clearly make the case for the Vlacho-Romanian origin of the Sarakatsani. Their garb, customs, way of life, folklore, etc. are utterly different to those of the Greeks and quasi-similar to those of the Vlachs/Romanians. Alexiou is, indeed, too much proud. He goes to the level of writing that he is the one and only blessed with the truth about the Sarakatsani!! But reality is different from what he writes: SARAKATSANI ARE NEARLY IDENTICAL TO THE VLACHS/ROMANIANS. And serious & impartial scholars' studies support this reality. John

Postato Wednesday, 1 September 2010 alle 17:17 da John

Repeat it all you like but the serious impartial scholarship as shown in the paragraphs below depict material and anthropological evidence that renders politically motivated pseudo assumptions like Mr. Baldaci's and those supporting an Aromanian/Albanian minority that is attempting to undermine true Scholarship and inquiry into the transhumant culture of the Sarakatsani since the Neolithic period The Sarakatsani nomadic shepherds of continental Greece are mainly located along the ranges of the Pindos massif. Epirus, Thessaly, Macedonia and Thrace are the provinces in which they are most numerous. Sarakatsani communities are also found further in the north. Their seasonal migrations had led many of them across the border to Bulgaria, Turkey, Albania and Yugoslavia. They α11 are Greek-speaking, wherever they live. The Danish scholar Carsten Hoeg (Hoeg, 1925-1926) has shown, that neither phonetically, nor in terms of grammatical structure, are there traces of foreign elements in the dialect spoken

by the Sarakatsani. Further, he writes, the Sarakatsani material culture shows the trace of sedentary origins. On the contrary it follows with precision and simplicity from the conditions of transhuman life in α particular physical environment. The Greek ethnographer Angheliki Chatzimichali (Chatzimichali, 1957), who spent a lifetime among them, believes that they are α group of population, who in their pastoral way of life, social organization, and art, show forth certain prototypical elements of Greek culture. She is describing, for instance, the similarities between the Sarakatsani decorative art and those of the "geometric" style of pre-classical Greece. The English researcher J. Κ. Campbell (Campbell, 1964) arrives at the conclusion that the Sarakatsani "must always have lived in more or less the same conditions and areas as we find them today". They are, indeed, very endogamic, thus we may consider them, from the anthropological point of view, an isolate group. Ε. Makris (Makris, 1990) also believes that they are a pre-Neolithic people. He gives α full description of their material life in his book.

Taking into consideration the above, the author undertook the study of physical anthropology of the Sarakatsani with the aim of utilizing these data as α historical source in the decision of this concrete ethnogenetic problem. At this point it must be emphasized repeatedly, that racial characteristics in no way predetermine the trend of historical events. But it is also true, that we proceed from the indisputable position that the physical type of α people, its area of distribution and its physical composition always reflect the process of its ethnic history.

Material and Methods.

In 1963, invited by the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, the author has studied among other groups α group of about 300 adult Sarakatsani of the Balkan Mountains. Half of them were men and half women. In the years 1967-1968 almost another 300 were studied in Greece along the Pindos Mountains. In every individual about 60 metrical and morphological traits were examined, while in α series of α couple of decades of contemporary Sarakatsani skulls, from Boeotia, were examined more than 70 traits. For comparison were used the tables previously published by Poulianos (1968, 1969, 1971) and unpublished, of more than 15,000 people examined from Central Asia, through Caucasus, to Spain. In elaborating the collected material the usual statistical techniques were applied.

Analysis.

From the morphometrical analysis it is apparent that not only historically, ethnographically and linguistically the two groups share common origin, but anthropologically too. Some differences must be accounted to the fact that the group of the Balkan area has been separated from the main group of Western Greece about 150 years ago. Besides, its population is very small in numbers (it does not exceed 4000 people). On the other hand the population of Pindos area is counted to be α few decades of thousands. Thus the Balkan group must be considered still more isolated than that of the Greek mainland. Both groups are characteristic of their big diameters of the head. But the biggest of α11 in comparison to other europeoid series is the bizygomatic breadth overlapping that of the mongoloids. The Boeotian skulls give us the same picture. There is nothing, of course, of the mongoloid complexity among Sarakatsani. Their wide bizygomatic diameter in α very few cases exceeds the head breadth. This, according to C. S. Coon (Coon, 1939), is an archaic trait found only among Upper Palaeolithic Europeans. Wide zygomatic arches sometimes combine with flaring gonial angles, and often the forehead is wider than the mandible and the face takes on the characteristic form of an inverted triangle. The morphological face height is quite small, in relation to the width, α trait also very distinctive for the Epirotics, as α11 the above, from the Aegeans (Mediterraneans). The women groups also give α 1οw face height. The plump cheeks of the Sarakatsani stand at the opposite European extreme than the drawn ones amongst Aegeans. Browridges are of moderate size, or do not exist. In most cases the frontal slope is straight. The skin color is also lighter among Sarakatsani, and the chest hirsutness is rare. Hairiness in this part of the world seems to be α trait of great taxonomic value. The lack of any prognathism is stressed by the great percentage of the opisthocephalic part of the face. These are only some of the traits.

Postato Sunday, 2 January 2011 alle 22:15 da Konstantinos Alexiou

Studies like that of Tanase Bujduveanu and Baldacci clearly make the case for the Vlacho-Romanian origin of the Sarakatsani. Their garb, customs, way of life, folklore, etc. are utterly different to those of the Greeks and quasi-similar to those of the Vlachs/Romanians. Irina Nicolau states that:".....Les quelques amples ouvrages affirmant qu'ils (Sarakatsani) seraient des Grecs n'ont pas reçu de réplique sur mesure. C'est pourquoi je me suis permis de dire ? un ethnologue bulgare, lors d'un entretien que nous avons eu au début des années quatre-vingt-dix : ?Les Saracaciani sont une population assez peu importante, si bien que vous, vous ne perdez pas grand-chose ? accepter qu'il s?agisse d'Aroumains assimilés, et moi, je n'y gagne pas grand-chose non plus. Nous voil? donc confrontés ? ce qui pourrait ?tre un enjeu commun : la vérité?. Dans les Balkans, comme ailleurs, chacun préf?re sa propre vérité....." Indeed, as Hugo wrote wrote: "You have to look for Saralatsani a bit more north around Agya Ana and Mandoudi (at Kerasia, Achladi, perhaps Mourtia, i.e. places where blonde heads and fairer skin are more common). These were foustanelochoroi contrasting with the “real” Greek villages in their vicinity which were “vrachoroi” (the swarthy Greek villagers were wearing those black Turkish baggy trousers called “vrachoi”). Also a good place to spot Sarakatsani in Euboea is Vlachia and Pyli, but there we have Saracen admixtures at Cape Sarakiniko so it’s a bit blurred. I heard with my own ears an old self-declared Sarakatsanos using the word “broasca” for “frog” (in neo-Greek would have been ‘batrachos’) and “negura” for “fog” (in neo-Greek “michli”). These are all pure Vlach-Romanian words and on my asking him about his knowledge of these unusual words the answer came: ‘Oh, these are just words we used as kids, long time ago, no one knows them anymore..Palea Apo Palea and he made a dismissive gesture with his right arm. His name is O Barbas Buzilas and I think he passed away since. So I’m not talking fairy tales, nymphs and Centauri but real words and real people in flesh and blood who used this non-Greek language since their childhood. The Sarakatsani look very different to the other Greeks (who, let’s face it, often look more Middle Eastern than European, no offence intended!). No way the Sarakatsani are Greek. As Antonio Baldacci put it, they are "Italiote", of Latin origin...." Greeks want to "assimilate" all people living in their country, but serious scholars pinpoint the truth: Sarakatsani are NOT greek. Sincerely. Mike

Postato Sunday, 9 January 2011 alle 20:15 da Mike T.

I want to remember that there are Sarakatsani even in Bulgaria and not only in Greece. In Bulgaria, according to the 2001 census, 4,107 individuals identified as Sarakatsani. In the census, this identification is considered separate from the identity of the Greeks in Bulgaria. Local organizations, however, estimate the number of Sarakatsani at up to 20,000. In Bulgaria, they are regarded as a distinct group of possible Vlach or Slavic origin. Most live in the vicinity of Sliven and are by now most of them Bulgarized. A Bulgarian theory states that the Sarakatsani are descendants of Romanized Thracians, who because of their isolation on the mountains did not became slavicised. According to the Italian anthropologist Pizzicaro, who did extensive research in the villages inhabited by Sarakatsani, Sarakatsans have strong affiliation with Greece but they don’t identify themselves as Greeks. A lot of young Sarakatsans go to Greece for seasonal jobs, as they are entitled to unlimited entries yearly visa to Greece, while some of them often decide to settle permanently. Today, more than 500 people only from Cocovo village live in Greece. These Sarakatsans from Bulgaria in Greece use many greek and slav words, but most of their vocabulary is clearly neolatin.B.D.

Postato Monday, 10 January 2011 alle 17:13 da B.D.

Saracacianii is the newest form of greek propaganda.

Postato Friday, 18 November 2011 alle 17:45 da Cezar

I want to ask the noble greek speakers above, why we don't have mentions of saracaciani 19 century. Why no one wrote about them untill in recent years?

Postato Friday, 18 November 2011 alle 17:47 da Cezar

I dont need to prove any affiliation with any foriegn propaganda and I am not mislead by any former state backed propaganda. Greece has enough enemies and enough problems as a European state without its identity or seperate identities being toyed with or misappropriated by foriegn interests and pseudo science that tries to pass itself for anthropology. This type of dis information is the kind of double speak that has one intention to undermine a specific historical and cultural origin of a people far older even than any indo european language or culture. Latin language and Hellenic influences aside the Sarakatsans are a prehistoric culture and its roots and practices have had a distinct influence on the cultures that curently surround them. The culture itself is endangered and the historic information did not enter the historic record until the late 18th and 19th century due to the fact that Greece had no identity or historic record prior to this. Under the Ottoman Empire Greece froze in time. The historians and historic ethnography was in its infancy even in civilized France and England and Greek or Sarakatsan or Albanian or Arvanite or Walachian or Turk had no real census of populations or movements until a century later. Scant little was recovered and compiled only after the English anthropologist John Campbell lived with the clans for decades. The grazing paths and routes of transhumance between the island of Euboea and the eastern mountain ranges of Bulgaria . The Greek anthropologist Poulianos states "Up to now in literature prevailed the opinion that the Basques, who do not speak an Indo-European language, were maybe the oldest people in Europe. Some refer to the Lapps as well too. Let us consider both cases: The Basques (Poulianos 1969b) as α whole are not very different in their physique from the rest of the population of Spain, which in its absolute majority is Mediterranoid. This is not meant to say that no Cro-magnon elements are met among the Basques, as we cannot say that no Mediterranoids are met among Sarakatsani. The relict language is only an indication of the antiquity of a population. The physical features are those which count more. On our case the Sarakatsani show themselves to be much older." Being of Sarakatsan stock myself on my paternal Grandfather's side I know of the clans in Euboea , I know of when my grandfather first came into the mountain range of Kandili and what they ate, how they married , the songs they sang the yearly gathering of the clans at Pertouli in central plains of Greece . I know of the archaic dialect and the divination of bones and organs after a lamb is slaughtered . I know of the patterns on their cloaks and of their familiarity of the land their quiet , stern and honor bound traditions. I am a Sarakatsan in part by inheritence although unfortunately not by experience , the modern world has doomed this ancient people to join the internet driven civilized world. Just as the 19th century Sarakatsan's identified themselves strongly with Hellenic culture , the Classical Hellenes identified themselves with the older Thracian and Pelasgian cultures that preceded them, in turn these Thracians too fell under the spell of Hellenized Macedon and joined in with the settled civilized Greeks. The story of cross cultural influences are complex and the polination of cultural and linguistic influence makes up what we call the Greek experience. That is something that no one can steal.

Postato Saturday, 28 July 2012 alle 11:53 da konstantine

By the way there are Ottoman census taking of Vlach or Walachians but only a few of the Sarakatsani. The Vachs or Koustso Vlachs or Arvanito Vlachs all differentiated themselves from the plains of Lamia to the peaks of Transylvania. But the Sarakatsans never intermarried with any of these tribes. They were endogamic and due to the nature of their individualized clan organization they stayed clear of governing administrators until the reorganization of the Hellenic Monarchy and State in the early 1900's. They were incorrectly grouped with all nomadic and shepherding societies as "Vlachoi" or Vlachs. The difference was known only too well by Vlachs and Sarakatsanoi themselves who respected each other but never mixed in the same social environments until the late 20th century. As for the Bulgarian Sarakatsani I suggest you read some articles done by the National Geographic Magazine where the Bulgarian Sarcatsani still speak Greek in Bulgaria at home and even though a great many of them find it easier to assimilate with slavo bulgarian culture the more traditional families still speak Greek like their distant compatriots do in the town of Aspromonte in southern Italy.
Capito?

Postato Saturday, 28 July 2012 alle 12:06 da konstantine

THIS POST IS FOR MIKE. i am a Sarakatsanos , so was my father and grandfather and so forth before me.
We never used the word Broasca or Tata or Vava or any such nonsense.
As a Greek I have heard people say the words Bravo in Greece, the words Macaronia, I have heard the words Bella for a white sheep and panteloni for pants , capa for a cape and caltzes for socks I guess all these latin words make us latin and or Italian, or Romanian or Vlach or some such nonsense. Your serious scholarship is rediculous assumption. And what you heard means nothing in the science based world. Baldaci only proposes a convinient theory that the "VLACH" or AROMANIAN propaganda wants so badly to have everyone swallow. But as a Sarakatsan you cant make us something we are not. I heard my ignorant , illiterate neighbor in Mandoudi say to my father a few years ago, "Hey Thanasi we Vlahi we are from Romania you know, we arent like these Greeks" I laugh at this now thinking how awful it must be to be amongst these "Greeks" that not only does a Sarakatsan God forgive him desperately want to be not only a "Vlach" as he mis interpets of his own origin but also a Romanian. The meaning of my story resolves itself when several years later I am looking through a very detailed census taken in the late 1800's in Mandoudi of the number of Sarakatsani clans that moved to Kandili Mountain. It numbered about 50 families , one of them was this old man Yasemis grandfather Yero Mourtopalas. This showed he was indeed a Sarakatsan which by the way were listed seperately from the Vlachs in town. He is now long dead and I find it sad that he did not know the truth and funny that he thought it a finer thing not to be a poor Greek thrown into the mess and trouble of being a Greek. Who can blame him. If it isnt Italians, its Turks when it isnt Turks, its Albanians, when they take a break its the Bulgarians when they grow tired of taking a shot at the Greeks its the World Bank when they are done the Greeks have no problem taking each other apart , Communist vs Anarchist, Syriza vs Nea Dimocratia. But that is what the world wants a Greek Tragedy played out on the culture that best defines and reflects the worst and best humans have to offer. So take your shot , its nothing new and its not going to change a thing.
By the way Sarakatsan's dont want to be Greek but they sure as hell arent Vlachs and they definately arent Romanians or Italians . Try the Alabanians they need an identity other than some half bastardized Illyrian myth they want to desperately believe.

Postato Saturday, 28 July 2012 alle 12:47 da konstantine

For Konstantine the Greek. Greeks want to “assimilate” all people living in their country, but serious scholars pinpoint the truth: Sarakatsani are NOT greek. And as Antonio Baldacci put it, they are “of Latin origin”. The truth cannot be falsified by greek nationalists. They can successfully do the falsification INSIDE Greece, using the greek media and the greek priests & military-politicians ....but -internationally outside Greece- people is free to get information from serious scholars and know the truth! M. T.

Postato Tuesday, 31 July 2012 alle 15:58 da M.T.

Vlachs have been magically forced to disappear from Aegean Macedonia after Balkan wars and they all simply became Greeks. LIKE THE SARAKATSANI in the centuries before. But Greek bandits were terrorizing Vlachs in Ottoman Macedonia since 1890s and they were also targeting Vlach community after Ottoman state recognized their church. They were forcing Vlachs to organize their liturgy in Greek, not in their own aromanian language

This is a PDF document in Turkish state archives web site. It includes a total of 153 reported incidents done by Greek bandits in Macedonia between the years of 1850 to 1913.

All of them are from Ottoman Empire archives. I checked some of them. It looks like they tried to force people to speak Greek language, be a member of Greek orthodox patriarch and/or Greeks. There are testimonies and statements of the victims and detailed reports.

Here is one criminal case:
"..Greek gang with 70 men goes to the church in a village named Gorice-Plas where mostly Vlach people lives and gathers everyone in the village at the church. They forcing them to quit praying in Vlach language and speaking Greek only. They threatens Vlachs that if they don't accept Greek identity and continue to use Vlach language, they will kill them. After the incident, they take few animal, some food and 2 men as a hostage and leaves the village. Local villagers demands Turkish government to build a local police station with soldiers in the village to protect them against never-ending oppression of Greek gangs. August 5th, 1905.."